


detail of the fire

by cirrus (themorninglark)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 10:47:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12886260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themorninglark/pseuds/cirrus
Summary: In which Kenma teaches Akaashi his current video game obsession, and they don't need to talk.





	detail of the fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [frozenyogurt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozenyogurt/gifts).



> This is for my Akaken partner-in-crime Pili, who gave me this prompt. You deserve only the best for your birthday ;)

_You lose again._

Kenma doesn’t need to say it, and they both know that. All he needs is to set down his controller, a late summer’s smile twitching on the corners of his mouth, and Akaashi feels like he would’ve lost no matter what.

He’s been sitting up straight all this while, perched on a nest of cushions while Kenma, sprawled out and propped up on his elbows, makes a pillow of his arms now and rests his head on them with a sigh that Akaashi once thought was a dismissal. Kenma is fine with people thinking that. Or so he says.

_I don’t really care—_

But this is no soliloquy, and there is a crinkle in that sigh that Akaashi could slide into, could pry open with a hand on Kenma’s shoulder, a brushing back of his fringe, watching it slip through his fingers as it falls back across Kenma’s face. He can see it so clear in his mind.

Today, with sweat beading the backs of their necks, it might not be the day for that. He doesn’t trust that fire uncoiling in his gut to stay where it should. There’s the slightest of rustles from the leaves outside, but the curtains are still.

So Akaashi, putting down his own controller, lets himself relax with a deep inhale. He stretches and turns to lie down on his back, to contemplate the sunlight on Kenma’s ceiling, making shadow-shapes like stained glass in monochrome. Dark and light and all of the edges that fit together in surprising ways, that score careful lines into the space between them. There is no net here to stop them from crossing those lines.

Their silence, an elaborate thing they constructed of stolen glances and impressions burned like sweet offerings, is not something that Akaashi cares to break, even if part of him wants to arch an eyebrow and say to Kenma, _you’re a terrible teacher_. It’s true, at least when it comes to video games, and especially when summer holidays are nearly upon them and it’s too hot outside to think, let alone talk. Fortuitous for them both then that Akaashi is a quick study. Fortuitous, too, that Kenma is observant enough to ramp up the difficulty without being asked to, that they’re always facing off at a tipping point, so Akaashi never gets too comfortable.

_Sometimes,_ Bokuto had told him once, in one of his flashes of absolute clarity, _I think you like things to be difficult, Akaashi!_

Akaashi had said nothing, looked out at the zebra crossing and pressed his knuckles into his palms, briefly considered what a strange streetside prayer this was. On the other side of the road, many roads over, there might have been a figure hunched over a game console and a stray cat that caught the shape of this wish between its teeth.

He says nothing, now. He keeps his words on the back of his tongue, swirls them around like a cocktail on a warm afternoon that bleeds into crimson. It bleeds into a loosened collar and his tie thrown on the floor of Kenma’s bedroom.

He reaches up with one hand, undoes another button slowly, and Kenma’s elbow bumps the side of his head as he shifts.

Akaashi glances sideways.

Kenma’s edged closer, been edging closer all this time. Akaashi, so conscious of distance, of seconds and millimetres, would know this for a fact even if he did not see Kenma breathing out now through parted lips, did not see, between his teeth—

Some days in their game, Akaashi thinks with a smile, he is the hunter; some days, the willing bait.


End file.
